Regimental
by Taki Ashflower
Summary: Little (ok I swear it is this time) fic for New Zealand's birthday! ... About a month late... XD Rated K for one very brief mention of alcohol, contains fluffy New Zealand and fluffy sheep, with a dash of melancholy. Right nice.


**A/N: I am so sorry. This in incredibly, incredibly,** _ **incredibly**_ **laaaaaateeee…**

 **So here's the story (behind the story… Wait what?): a while ago, I finished my take-home work early, and was like "Wow, I can actually go to bed early tonight!" But then I thought: "… Orrrrrr, I can take all the Hetalia characters' birthdays, compile them into my calendar, and every time one comes up I can write a little ficlet for them!"**

 **And thus, this. About, oh, A MONTH LATE.**

 **(I'm so sorry New Zealand…)**

 **AND, because luck is** _ **so**_ **not on my side, I would not have had to put this little background thingy up here if Doc Manager would let me edit the story I posted for Japan's birthday, but you didn't honestly think it'd let me do that, didja? XD I thought it might.**

 **Ah well – in any case, here's a very short and very late story for New Zealand, cause he needs more love! (You'd better) enjoy!**

Parker knew it was morning before he opened his eyes. That was often the case with him, possibly as a result of growing up an introverted child in a crowded home. He had been raised to sense the atmosphere before making any moves, even one as simple as waking up, and the habit had followed him like a ewe into adulthood.

Even if there wasn't any reason for it to stick around; the sunlight was filtering through the thin curtains over the window next to his bed (he really needed to make a new pair, preferably blackout ones), and he was steadily becoming aware of the hum of sheep below in his yard. There was no immediate threat. No one else was around to accidentally fall off a top bunk and onto his leg, no one's pet polar cub to wander up to his sleeping form and begin contentedly gnawing on his ankles (who even lets their kids have a pet bear, anyway?). His childhood days, even if they seemed so close sometimes, were far behind him. Parker lived alone, just him and the sheep he kept, on a quiet little farm in rural New Zealand, about as far away as he could possibly get from England.

 _England…_ How he reminisced of it, the place he'd grown up, the place he'd had so many memories, the place where Arthur was…

He rolled back the sheets and slipped quietly out of bed, dodging a sheep that was _baa_ -ing plaintively in the doorway, then another sheep padding leisurely up the stairs, then another sheep just hopping off the stairs into his living room, and a good fifteen more sheep just to get into his kitchen. He'd made the coffee last night and stuck the pot in his fridge, so his little friends wouldn't get into it; really, though, given the circumstances, Parker should probably be more worried about the sheep getting into other, more important things.

"So how is it," he began aloud as he poured the cold coffee into his favorite mug (one that said, "Talk to me and I'll kill you with a blanket", that Jackson had given him a few Chrissies ago), addressing any sheep who would listen, "that every morning, you all somehow manage to sneak into my house again?" He was sure he'd bolted the door last night, as he'd been sure he'd bolted the door every night for at least a week now… Clearly, he'd have to have a closer look around.

A lamb came up him as he was sipping his freezing cold coffee – _to each his own_ (as Arthur would say, miserably, as his kids made fun of him for eating beans, egg yolk, and just about anything on toast) – and started nudging at his leg, obviously intrigued by the fabric of his pajama pants. Laughing, he set down his mug and reached down to scoop the lamb into his arms, cuddling it as gently as he could to soothe its disgruntled bleating. A bigger specimen, most likely the lamb's mother, came up to him moaning for the release of her baby; smiling apologetically, he set the squirming creature down and watched as she trotted over to her mother with no haste whatsoever. "Sorry, love."

He knew he was a stereotype – it was kind of his job to be, after all – but Parker didn't care. He absolutely adored sheep; they were sweet and gentle, as you'd expect them to be, but surprisingly sassy if you crossed them. The little ones were the cutest, obviously, and the oldest of the flock, by contrast, could be extremely belligerent if you didn't treat them well. They were a social species, forming bonds with each other based on what they had in common, rather than fighting over their differences. They were a lot like human beings, Parker mused, but a certain kind of human beings. The kind that was friendly and curious, and tried to help out when someone needed it. The kind that would follow you around excitedly when you were happy, who would seem to smile back at you with their gentle eyes and snuggle their warm, fluffy little bodies against you as you lay contentedly in a field… The kind who would gather cautiously around you as you fell, your mind a mess drowning in alcohol, against the wall, who would climb onto your lap and nuzzle you as you wound your shaky fingers into their wool and cried and cried, until you decided, exhausted, to forgo the bed and let sleep take you right where you were. The kind who would only need to stroke your face with a little pink tongue once or twice the following morning in order to convince you that there was still a meaning to your life. That they were counting on you, depending on you for survival.

Parker couldn't stand the feeling of human beings depending on him, comforting him, wanting him around, _loving_ him. With the sheep, it was different. He could handle it if it was just sheep. He could appreciate it and even welcome the feeling if it was just sheep.

A sudden but passive nudge to the back of his leg made Parker suddenly realize that his head was drooping over his chest and he was leaning dangerously to one side. His eyes shot open, focusing unsteadily on the sheep next to his leg – there was only one left in the entire kitchen, though from the vaguely annoyed dissonance just out the window (where there was, oddly enough, a lamb midway through shimmying itself out of his kitchen via said window), the rest of the flock wasn't far away at all.

"So that's how you got in!" He breathed, half flustered and half impressed. The sheep by his leg bleated impatiently, carefully climbing onto a chair next to the counter – where had that even come from? – then onto the counter itself, giving the struggling lamb a helpful push out before making its way through after it. Parker watched, paralyzed by the sudden discovery of how ridiculously clever these animals were. Honestly, the last time he'd locked himself out of his house, he'd just gone out into the field to sleep and had spent the night in dual portions either awake and paranoid or terrorized by nightmares of sheep thieves (did such things exist? It hadn't mattered; he was still scared of them) who also worked as illegal organ donors on the side.

Arthur had always said he had an overactive imagination, but it sounded a tad hypocritical coming from a man who not only claimed to see fairies and unicorns (as though that alone wasn't weird enough), but had formed a club of people who could do the same. Alfred called him a schizo, and Parker could never help but wonder if that was part of the reason why he'd left Arthur.

The sharp _baa!_ of the last sheep to leave his house, who had now dropped below the window on the outside of the house, woke him up again. Deciding against bringing his coffee – he'd need his hands free to brush the sheep's wool – he climbed on the counter and squirmed his way, quite uncomfortably, out onto the empty flowerbeds where the flock had left a bit of space for him to drop down. Standing up again, brushing dirt off his pajamas, he lead the flock over to the shed where he kept the supplies for their care.

It was the same routine that he'd been doing every morning without fail for years; up at the crack of dawn, or whenever the sheep commanded him awake, pour a cup of coffee that was doomed never to be finished while hot (after a while, he'd given up on hot beverages in the morning altogether), groom the sheep, watch over them as they fed, sketch a little, and do any extra work that needed getting done that day. He was a pretty busy guy, he thought while gently pulling the first lamb onto his lap and running the brush through its curls, but he never really felt busy. He never felt like he was doing work. He was just spending time with the sheep.

His friends. His family.

The day passed in an unmemorable, but enjoyable manner, just as it always did. The sheep were predictably clumsy, loveable creatures, and everything they did enchanted him, just as it always did. Soon, it was enough to make him forget all about Jackson, and England, and Arthur, and how much he missed them, just as it always did.

 **A/N: The ending was supposed to be kinda sad. Did it work?**

 **I hope so. Anyway, Ash's out~~**


End file.
